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The Guardian

Email2,479 views | The Guardian The Guardian is a British newspaper/Internet Newspage that plays it fast and loose with facts and spellings. American Liberals find it a good alternative to American newspapers for purposes of gaining variety in their daily left-leaning news.

Funny thing is we didn’t photoshop the “Terror Snatches” article, that’s real.
Just The Facts
1.The Guardian boosts one of the largest American audiences for a foriegn non-pornographic publication.
2.The terms “Guardian Reader” and “Guardinista” have come to mean a person of leftist views in England, used primarily as a slur.
3.American elitists read The Guardian so they can brag about being worldly and/or to catch up on English Soccer news.
4.Has earned the nickname “the Grauniad” for a history of amusing typo errors. Lately they’ve struggled with facts about other countries as well.
Cracked on The Guardian
In addition to having a sizeable American readership, The Guardian is one of the most quoted foreign newspapers by American media. The Guardian has returned the favor by trying to directly intervene in American elections. However, most American males are disappointed to learn that The Guardian does not feature a naked woman every issue like British tabloids.

Regardless of any disappointment you might have about at the lack of nudity, you have to marvel at The Guardian’s ever evolving business model that manages to keep it alive while many other papers have bit the dust. The Guardian started out in physical printed form and morphed throughout the years to wind up predominantly an on-line entity. We here at Cracked think that’s brilliant for obvious reasons. We also admire the way The Guardian manages to piss off important people, like how in October 2009, The Guardian was gagged from reporting about the actions of Parliament. You also might be wondering what in the world is happening in England when newspapers are banned from covering certain things.

We’re also big fans of amusing typos and factual errors so The Guardian is pretty much the greatest publication ever.

The Birthplace of The Guardian (Manchester, England).
The Guardian was originally formed in the working-class city of Manchester, England. Manchester has the distinction of being the world’s first Industrialized City. This means of course, that it was the world’s first dirty, stinking, smoky cesspit. Manchester’s fortunes have recovered somewhat as they have given the world two of the biggest forces of Popular Culture: Manchester United Football Club and the band Oasis. The city itself remains a cesspit of theft and sexually transmitted diseases rivaled only by nearby Liverpool. The only upside is that The Guardian finally abandoned the pretense of being true to their roots and moved to London in 1964. Almost 35 years later to the day the Band Oasis quit pretending they cared about anything other than their own wallet and released “Be Here Now.” 40 years to the day Manchester United sold out to Americans who quaintly refer to the club as “our fuckin’ cash cow.”

Couldn’t be bothered to write good songs anymore.

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Political Views of The Guardian
In 2004 the Guardian’s editor Ian Katz replied, “It is no secret we are a centre-left newspaper”. Of course this seems harmless until you check the “Translating Political Talk to Real World Talk” and find….
“Center-Left: A term used by the left to pretend they’re not that left at all.”

Center-Leftists at Woodstock

But perhaps we’re just misunderstanding the subtleties of British political thought by applying our experience with people who call themselves center-anything (like how Fox News calls itself “Center-right”). So lets just look at some of the many times The Guardian has stepped into American politics to get a better view of their political beliefs.

2008 Endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for US President and criticized John McCain for making too many “compromises with the social conservative wing” of his party. Oh okay, well, you know a lot of foreigners championed the Obama cause (and after all a majority of Americans did also) and the complaint about McCain compromising could have been lifted directly from any liberal American newspaper….

2004 Endorsed Democrat John Kerry for US President and actually actively campaigned for him through a letter writing campaign in Ohio. Oh… well… uhm…. you know the Iraq war really pissed off a lot of people around the world and we’re sure that The Guardian had really good reasons for trying to affect the outcome of the American elections. I mean, they wouldn’t mind if Americans tried to tell the British who to vote for, right?

2000 Endorsed Democrat Al Gore for US President. Yeah… hmph… sort of a trend here after all. But we have no proof that The Guardian is actively trying to promote a certain political philosophy, right?

Oh wait, here it is right here…

In 2005 The Guardian reminded readers of their partisan beliefs by claiming that it would be foolish to try to endorse an more leftist/liberal camp then the Labour Party out of fear that the Tories/Conservatives/Right might gain from the in-fighting and sneak to an election victory. Yeah, okay, that pretty much tells us their bias.

True to their word, the Guardian has remained a paper of the Upper-Middle class, As Ted Scott (son of the its most famous editor, C.P.Scott) boasted it is “a paper that will remain bourgeois to the last”. (Ayerst, The Guardian, 1971, p.471.) Unfortunately “bourgeois” has come to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and few even understand what this was supposed to mean anymore.

The Guardian has remained popular with Labour party members as a MORI poll taken between April and June 2000 showed that 80% of Guardian readers were Labour Party voters; as such The Guardian is smart to play up similar beliefs to those of their readers While The Guardian brings in guest writers from virtually all political walks of life in Britain, their editorial bias has remained true to their readers. After all, It would be incredibly foolish not to stay in alignment with the political beliefs of this base… that would be like biting the hand that feeds you, which now brings us to a section we call:

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU (Distinctly Un-leftist Views/Actions of The Guardian)

Although The Guardian is overwhelming read by leftists, it does manage to piss off its base from time to time. Consider the following liberal causes and The Guardian’s half-assed responses…
Women’s Suffrage: The Guardian claimed to support Women’s Suffrage back in the day, but heavily criticized any actual efforts the women took themselves to get those rights. The Guardian preferred instead that the women wait until the men who ran the government (i.e. their friends) gave them voting rights.
Internment without trial: “Internment without trial is hateful, repressive and undemocratic. In the existing Irish situation, most regrettably, it is also inevitable. … To remove the ringleaders, in the hope that the atmosphere might calm down, is a step to which there is no obvious alternative.” (Guardian leader, 10 August 1971). But don’t worry, this is not applied to Guantanamo Bay.

Whistleblowers/Journalistic Integrity: Sarah Tisdall had attempted to help prevent possible wars by leaking papers related to the stationing of cruise missiles in Britain. When ordered to turn over the name of the whistle-blower, The Guardian rolled over like a dog and Sarah Tisdall went to jail. But you know, they felt really, really bad for her.
Israel: Despite being a supporter of the Zionist movement originally, in 2003 columnist Julie Birchill left citing “striking bias against the state of Israel” as one of her motives for quitting. Because, you know, while Jews are technically a minority according to popular stereotypes they are so rich and powerful it’s okay to discriminate against them (psst… did you hear the Jews are also keeping the Black Man down?).
US Elections: In 2004 the Guardian bought a voter list from Clark County, Ohio (in the USA) and encouraged readers to write to undecided voters to enlighten them to the fact the British hate George W. Bush and to encourage them to vote for the more acceptable, more British-like John Kerry. At first this seems to be in line with their reader’s views. However, the Guardian’s efforts is cited as one of the reasons G.W. Bush won Clark County as apparently Americans tend to think they should be allowed to decide which douchebag to vote for without some limey bastard telling them who to vote for.

On assassinating US Presidents: In October 2004, The Guardian published a humor column by Charlie Brooker in its entertainment guide, which called for the assassination of President Bush. This was actually a big hit with American liberals. The page was taken down after Brooker claimed he recieved death threats in response to what he called an attempt at an “ironic” joke. The last line from the piece had said: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, Jr-Where are you now that we need you?” Oh he’s so ironic. If you read this and say “Oh, it’s just a joke people” then simply reverse the situation and ask yourself, how would it go over if a right-wing humorist columnist (even one known for ironic jokes and a sharp wit, like say Dennis Miller) wrote: “Where’s James Earl Ray when you need him?” in a article about President Obama. Or if an American looked at the antics of Prince Harry and said “Where’s the car-chasing paparazzi when you REALLY need them?”

Religious Discrimination: Following the 2005 London Bombings by Islamic terrorists, The Guardian discovered one of their writers, Dilpazier Aslam belonged to an Islamic group whose goal was the creation of an Islamic government in Britain through NON-VIOLENT means, so they fired him… because he was Islamic? Yeah, basically.
On Multi-Culturalism: The Guardian once wrote an editorial praising the Vikings as an example of co-existing with different peoples. Yes, the peaceful fun-loving Vikings.

Sites of Viking Attacks Peaceful Co-Existing

“The Grauniad” (musspelled werds ar funn).
The amusing Typo and spelling errors in the Guardian have led it to earn the nickname “The Grauniad.” Most of the errors in the early days can be traced to a rushed timetable as the paper had to be printed before the last train from Manchester to London left the station.

However there have been some interesting errors of late also…

Perhaps most amusingly they tend to misspell their own name in articles, see the third paragraph of their announcement of their campaign to sway the election in Clark County, Ohio, where they proudly write: “While there’s no point being coy about Britain’s preferences in this election (never mind those of Guardain readers).”

The same misspelling occurs here and here, and it pops up often from whoever ads the hyper links to the email addresses of the writers listed in the article as you will see here and here. To be fair, “Guardian” is kind of hard to spell and they seem to take it all in stride rather well.

Unfortunately the errors also happen to occur in the facts…

Fact Errors from 2009
For a week in April The Guardian included a set of “World Factfile booklets” with their papers. These included some of the following errors:

A list of Jamaica’s “living national icons” included the late Bob Marley (21 April, page 31).

Listed Bulgaria’s highest point under the Cold-War era name “Stalin peak” instead of correct name of “Musala peak.” (18 April, page 29).

Included Cyprus (Which Turkey occupies but does not claim) on the Map of Turkey (25 April page 14). The Map of the United States would have to be rather large to include Iraq and Afghanistan by this logic.

British explorers on Barbados in 1627, “found the island uninhibited” (18 April, page 18). Perhaps in another age this could have led to a successful soft porn franchise called “native girls gone wild.”

Bizarrely, the national anthem of Brunei including a verse about their willingness to fight for Albania (18 April, guardian.co.uk).

For a newspaper willing to cover events around the world, The Guardian also manages to mess up world leaders’ names and/or titles… sometimes three in one day. They do tend to eventually spot the errors though.

Still Alive, According to The Guardian

Sport Section
The Guardian does more then just serve the Labour Party and create an ever growing demand for spellchecking editors, it also provides excellent coverage of Sport (yes dear American reader, In England they drop the “S” from Sports).

The notable writers for The Guardian Sport Page include Paul Hayward and David Conn. This is balanced by the shitty writing of Barney Ronay who seems to only be allowed to write about transfer rumors. That’s right, they only let him write about things that other people have said MIGHT happen.

Probably won a contest to write for The Guardian.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, Or Just Fuck It, Let’s Make Up a Right-Wing American Lego Conspiracy
The Guardian has gained notice throughout the world.

San Francisco’s alternative Newspaper, The Bay Guardian, is named in honor of The Guardian. The Bay Guardian’s views make The Guardian look center-leftist by comparison.

In 2006 The Guardian was called to task for collaborating with opponents of an Indian Guru to label him a pedophile. The time honored journalistic tradition of asking your subjects’ enemies for background information might be in danger nowadays.

In 2006 The Guardian claimed “fervent rightwing Americans started buying Bang & Olufsen stereos and Lego” to show support for the Danish who had offended Muslims with an offensive anti-Islamic cartoon. The only source for this is quoting the fact that Danish imports to America were up 17% with no link made between the right-wing and the Danish anti-Islamic cuase. In fact, it is supported only by the fact a British guy called for increased purchase of Danish goods in Britain and an American soldier wrote him a nice letter.

Right Wingers Now Stocking up on Guns, Tobacco, and Legos according to The Guardian. Take that Islam!